They’re Going Green – my hair turns gray with my my new cell phone
September 2, 2010
even grannies use cell phones
Alright so I know EVERYBODY other than your Grandmother has a cell phone, but it’s taken me a few years to actually get up the courage to get a ‘real’ cell phone.
Why do I say ‘real’ cell phone?
Because I’ve had a kind of throw away version for awhile just to take on trips and to text my nieces, as we all know that is the only way to reach young people today.
Anyway my fabulous business partner Ian is coming to town this month from France and I wanted to be able to do international calling and texting which I can’t do on my current pitiful little cell phone. Thus the upgrade.
I took the plunge and bought a super groovy, adorable, chic and cheap version of the Iphone. Well actually it wasn’t that cheap! But it’s more my style than the super-jam packed Iphone which I know I couldn’t use!
It came with the assumption that I would have no idea how to use this phone. I am over 50 and thus do not have the natural brain cells for figuring this stuff out.
my groovy new phone
My sister who’s had an Iphone for years reassured me that if her husband could figure it out, then so could I. But alas I did not buy an Iphone, I bought a Samsung Messager Touch which is similar a whole different animal.
I sat down to try my hand at it and within minutes had developed a horrible headache! For one thing the instructions were so small that I had to go find a pair of those magnifying glasses to read it – ARRRGH!
Then of course I couldn’t get any of it to work:
- I couldn’t set up my voicemail – damn!
- I couldn’t delete things I’d done – annoying!!
- and there was no information at all on the camera – hmmm, what’s going on here?
I got so mad that I finally decided to call the company and yell at someone! I thought that would at least get the stress out of my system and restore my brain power, so I could think logically about operating my phone.
Just kidding! I didn’t yell at anyone :>) But I did plan to spend an hour on the phone with them while they explained everything to me.
Oh I forgot to mention that before I called them I actually went on Youtube and looked up the phone and there were at least 4 videos, all done by 13 year-old boys! I’m not kidding, look it up yourself and you’ll see that this is not a storyteller’s fabrication.
They spoke so fast and in such a garble (they are 13 after all) that I had no idea what they said and realized very quickly that they could teach me nothing. I am over 50 after all. We speak different languages. Thus the call to the company, who then told me to call the manufacturer, Samsung, so I did.
Samsung said to me, “Oh we don’t send the manual anymore. We’re going GREEN!”
Going green???????? You don’t send the manual because you are going green? Now I was turning red. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!
they're working on my phone
And it gets worse! You know what ‘going green’ really means? It means that I have to print out the 165 page manual myself. At the cost of paper and the stress on my ancient printer, gee that sounds like the green really means -
We’re too cheap to do this ourselves!
If I still have to print the manual, then in the bigger sense of the world, we have not gone green at all, it’s just that the cost and the effort are all on my side and that is not a nice message to send your customer, don’t you think?
So here are my suggestions for you Samsung: (note the green color here)
- I love your phone, it’s really cute and groovy.
- I like the idea of going green. I just think we need to be clear what that means.
- Why don’t you create a nice little card that you package with your phone that explains your eco-philosophy and the fact that since many people throw the manual in the trash, you are saving paper.
- I would be cool with that and thus I would think that you are a cool company, rather than cheapskates who are burdening me with a task that you should have done.
Got it??
I love the phone. I stayed up until mid-night learning it. In my learning curve, I called a wrong number and got someone who texted me back and said, “Who is this???”
Alas, it’s proving to be a great way to meet new people in other parts of the world!
All in all it’s been a great, green and groovy experience, getting me up to speed with technology. Now I just have to go re-dye my hair as I think I got a bit more gray in the process.
Thanks Samsung and thanks little Cricket phone – I’ve named her “Jimminy”. Stay tuned for more story-phone adventures in techno-wonderland.
Yours in story and always keeping up to date with the 13 year olds,
Annie
Video: Stories From the Heart of the Cosmos
August 30, 2010
This is a wonderful video short of my body of work called, “Stories from the Heart of the Cosmos” done for me by friend, filmmaker Tim Kelly. It gives you a sense of the characters and stories that make up my world. I am publishing this again because I’m going to use some of the stories for my forthcoming book. Hope you enjoy a trip through the cosmos!
I Change People’s Lives
July 26, 2010
life changing
I decided to create a tongue-in-cheek video this week about changing people’s lives. As I’ve been working with my branding manager on creating my new website, he insists that my tag line be:
Annie Hart – Life Changing
I love it but at the same time I realize that it’s nearly impossible to say that you change people’s lives. In my field, everyone says that they change people’s lives so who is going to believe you if you say you do?
Years ago I used to have this dilemma in a different way. Back before the field of coaching existed, I would try to tell people what I did for a living and I would always run up against a wall. I had no idea what to say.
So I would mumble a bit and then finally mutter under my breath, “Um I change people’s lives.” That would stop the person dead in their tracks and they would say, “Really?? How do you do that?” Then the conversation would be quite animated as they found out about my work.
no small task
Changing people’s lives is no small task. It requires humility, perseverance against all odds, knowing when to listen, knowing when to back off and most important of it, it requires knowing who you can help and who you can’t.
So I do change people’s lives and I’m damned proud to be able to say so. After all these years it finally rolls off my tongue without too much of a glitch.
But I don’t take it lightly either. I’ve come by my skills both due to having had amazing mentors and do to the hard knocks of real life. I’ve learned from my own foibles and failures and from worked and didn’t work with my clients.
But the irony is that although I use the tag line, “Life Changing,” it’s really my life that is changed by doing the work that I do. I am the lucky one, to be privy to the tender, raw and real insides of people’s lives and to have the trust that they place so delicately in my hands.
changing lives
I take care to never tromp on their trust or to act in anything less than integrity.
Changing people’s lives is the most beautiful and the hardest task of all, because you have to be real and true to yourself. You have to live by your principles you can’t just talk about and take the easy way out.
It ain’t easy but it’s life changing to change people’s lives. So here I am after all these years telling the truth for the first time. I am Annie Hart and I change people’s lives.
Look for my new website coming in the next few months!
The Beauty of Creating Out of the Mess
July 22, 2010
If you can weather the feeling that you’re going to be a failure, then the journey of creating something new is totally worth it.
This year I’ve had two amazing opportunities thus far to reap the pearls out of seemingly hopeless mess!
The first was in creating Retreat 42, a retreat in daily life. When I set out on my own personal retreat I asked the question, “How can I get bigger projects off the ground?” I was really stuck and I wanted to find out how to break through that.
I didn’t set out to create a program, write or book or do any of the other amazing things that came out of it. I just set out to answer one HUGE question but much to my surprise, out of that mess came a whole host of beautiful creations.
Voila’ out of the mess comes amazing new life. That is if you can weather the discomfort of it all.
So what are the challenges and discomforts of creating out of the mess?
- we hate to feel like a failure and when you’re in a mess it feels like anything but success.
- you feel confused, so you might consider yourself off-track but you’re really not.
- messy times are so darned uncomfortable that we tend to avoid them, therefore very few people know how to support you through the messy times.
- it feels just awful sometimes, kind of like being covered in mud or sludge.
So think of it this way – mess is part of nature and the natural cycle of life. Your garden is a good example.
At the end of the season everything is dying and worn down. It all rots (smells awful) and goes back into the ground where it reemerges as fertile nutrients.
Think lotus rising out of the muddy pond and you will get the feeling of the potential of the messy bogs of your life.
Don’t be afraid of them, don’t back off, don’t believe what anyone 
else tells you.
The messy, boggy, sloggy and muddy side of life is fertile ground. Today enjoy the beauty of the mess. You just might be onto something.
So just remember:
P.S I’m not talking mess in the sense of leaving your dishes undone or your clothes all over the floor!
Will My REAL Life Please Show Up
July 19, 2010
the good life
There I was living in Europe with my gorgeous European (Italian or Spanish) husband, my beautiful children and living the good life. I was always eating delicious food, being totally loved and adored and it was always sunny.
That is in my dreams and fantasies about my life!
But that life has not happened, nor anything even close to it. Yes I have traveled and lived in Europe. Yes I have dated European men, but I am not married, do not have children, do not live in a Tuscan village and do not receive foot rubs every day as in my dreams.
So the question is – when is my REAL life going to show up??
That answer is – it’s not. The life I’m living now is my real life. It’s the life that I never thought I’d be living but it’s exactly the life I’m meant to have. God forbid I should even be grateful for it and not wishing for that fantasy life that I envisioned for so long.
Now I am the first one to believe in dreaming and envisioning things, but in my Peter Pan-ish youth, I didn’t understand the reality factor of these things. We don’t, in my humble opinion, come into this life to ‘manifest our perfect dream life.‘
the perfect dream life
Much to the contrary, we come to grow, be humbled, to be challenged into changing ourselves and ultimately become a better person. This doesn’t necessarily happen by receiving the picture-perfect dream life.
So how do I reconcile those dreams, visions, fantasies and wishes? I don’t. I always live with this idea of an ideal life inside of me but on a regular basis I try to be cognizant of what I actually have.
I am not saying this is easy. I still want my fantasy life. But I would hate to be at the end of my life and realize that I wasted huge chunks of it, waiting for something that was never meant to happen.
What a waste that would be.
Neither do I want to stop dreaming and wishing for a life beyond what I have now. That’s not good either. Our spirit always needs to grow, expand and fly.
I think of it this way – life is made of sugar and salt. Salt is the tougher element, the one that breaks down other elements of nature. Salt is the part of my life that challenges me to grow beyond what I think I need.
Then there is the sweet side of life, the ‘dolce’ in my vita. That is the part of life that is naturally easy and pleasurable. It’s easy to love this side of life, but hard not to hate the other. But all sugar and no salt would be a sickeningly sweet life.
Try to convince me of that when a gorgeous Italian male comes to rub my feet and you’ll see that I’m a liar, but since that’s not going to happen today, I’m going to accept the sugar and the salt and love them both.
salty and sweet life
I do love salty potato chips and I do love chocolate, so if you eat chips and chocolate every day your life will be just peachy. Oops that’s another sweet!
You get the idea. The life we wish for is never going to show up like we see it in our inner movie. Does it mean we should stop dreaming? Absolutely not, but at the same time when we accept the salty, life naturally gets sweeter.
Viva la dolce vita!
How to Create a Meaning-full Life
July 12, 2010
meaningful life
Recently it’s come up several times where someone has commented to me that I’ve helped them to create a life of meaning.
Wow, what could be a better gift than that?
It helped me to see that this is no small thing and it’s not something that we’re automatically taught how to do in our modern world. I do believe that in ancient times this was part of our culture, but today it is definitely not.
So it made me think about what it is that actually creates a life of meaning and I came up with a few things.
First through let me tell you how I figured this out for myself. It has to do with my being a stubborn mule. My grandmother would always say to my mother, “Oh she’s so sweet,” and my mother would answer, “Oh Mom you don’t know her, she’s stubborn as a mule.”
stubborn mule
My mother was right of course and my stubornness actually served me in this regard. It served me because I absolutely refused to live a superficial life. I just couldn’t do it.
When everyone else was hunkering down to make money after college, I was traveling around the world – living, learning and gathering hunky boyfriends (but that is another story!)
I had a hard time doing those ordinary jobs that everyone else was doing. I remember one time I went to work as a temp in an office. I lasted all of about 2 hours before I hightailed it out of there.
I was sitting at a keyboard typing in some data when I asked the guy next to me how long he’d been there and he said, “Five years.” but the look on his face told me everything.
I asked him how he liked it and he said he hated it. I was shocked. You hate it and you’ve been here five years?? That so unnerved me that I told them I was sick and went home before lunch. I didn’t even last half a day. Selling my soul to an unhappy job was not my thing.
So point #1 is - to create a meaningful life you’ve got to dare NOT to do what you really don’t want to do and would hate doing.
Got that? Do not, absolutely do not, do things just because they are:
- a good idea
- someone tells you that you should
- you think it’s the only way to do it
Not of this is true. It’s all a lie. You can live a life of meaning but you’ve got to risk NOT to follow the crowd. Got that?
steer your ship
Now then how do you steer yourself towards what has lasting value? Well sometimes that’s not easy either but let me give you a clue. Lasting value is not in these things:
- money
- a new boyfriend or girlfriend
- chocolate (unless you eat enough of it)
- a new car
- you get the idea
So point number two is – think about the things that you can do to make a better world, change yourself and help those around you.
A full-filling life is found in the deeper sense of contributing to life.
That will contribute to a meaningful life more than anything. For at the end of the day or the end of our lives, we are not here for ourselves. We are here to share and make a difference for others.
There’s more I could say but just these tips for now. How can you stop following the crowd and how can you steer towards what contributes to the world and has lasting value.
Hope you enjoy the post and feel free always to share your stories!
Think Small – advice from a mouse
July 6, 2010
think small
In the personal growth field, everyone is always touting us to ‘Think Big.’ But thinking big is overrated. Every now and then it’s a good idea to get low to the ground and think small for a bit. Let’s take the example of a little mouse.
A little mouse, what do I mean?
This week my niece sent me a picture of an adorable little mouse and it made me think about the beauty and benefits of the small side of life. In a world that is all about the gigantic proportions of big cars, mountainous buffet dinners and extra-large coffee drinks, thinking from the small side of life can be very beneficial.
Years ago I had a friend visit me from Italy. He had never been to America before and we took him to dinner. Afterwards he ordered coffee which was served in a a mug. As you know coffee in coffee (which is called caffe) is served in a tiny cup.
He took one look at the mug and shouted, “Madonna e’ una piscina,” which translates to, “My God, it’s a swimming pool.” He was absolutely astounded at the size of everything and he spent his entire vacation eating ‘big sandwiches’ and watching big cars drive by. He had a ball with the large side of American life.
While that was a fun experience for him, most of us need just the opposite. We can benefit from un-giganticizing our thinking. I just made up that word by the way!
So let’s take a look at how mouse-like behaviors might truly benefit us:
open up and trust
Mouse Tip #1 – as a small creature you can easily rest in the palm of someone’s hand. In human parlance this means that it’s good to let down your guard, be soft and open your belly to the world. Let all the burdens slip off your shoulders, open up and trust.
It’s good to rest in the palm of the world sometimes.
slow down and rest
Mouse Tip #2 – as a little mouse you can yawn a lot. In human terms this means that when you allow yourself to live like a little creature you can be in tune with your own natural rhythms. You may find you need a rest, a nap or just a short break. Take time to be like this little mouse and tune in.
It’s good to rest and slow down.
creative challenges
Mouse tip #3 – mice are creative above all else. Just watch how they store seeds, nuts and cheese in their little holes. They show us that you can have fun with life and creatively prepare for anything that life may bring you. You don’t need to be on guard about it, instead look forward to the obstacles and challenges that might come your way. It’s good to be prepared to roll creatively with life.
Be creative with life’s challenges and look forward to whatever life has to bring you.
So what do you think? Might it not be time to slow down, take some time to rest in the palm of the world and be prepared for the life to come?
Thanks to my niece Meredith and I hope you’ve enjoyed my little mouse story. I encourage you to think small and enjoy the benefits.
The Single Greatest Change You Can Make
July 5, 2010
ready for change
Ready for a leap in self development? Ok here it is. Make a list of your top ten worst traits. That’s right, stop and do that right now.
Now sit that list right in front of you. You should feel a cringe inside your gut like, “Oh jeez I wish that wasn’t me.” If you feel that, then you’ve got the right list.
If you feel like, “Oh that’s not so bad,” then you faked yourself out the first time and you need to write it over. This time write the REAL list. The one you don’t want anybody to know about.
Now that you’ve got the real list let’s begin. With the list straight in front of you picture yourself at 80 years old. Imagine all those traits on the list as getting stronger, firmer, less yielding and more set in stone, like granite. Ok really picture yourself at 80 with those traits having hardened into being who you are today.
EEEEKKK!
If you feel that eeek! then we’re on the right track. This means that those traits are exactly who you never want to become right? If you want to amp up this exercise, go back and list the top five worst traits of someone whom you judge a lot.
Again add them to your set-in-stone 80-year old personality and you’ve got all the makings for a big change coming on right now! Ready?
time for change
All you have to do is to take seriously the fact that if we are not pushing ourselves to change then we’re not changing.
I have watched every one of my older relatives, friends, colleagues become less kind, less loving and more unyielding as they’ve aged. It’s a shocking conclusion about life that no one ever tells us about and and I’m not sure why not.
Our negative traits are like weeds that grow and take over if we don’t pull them out.
I watched my favorite aunt become nasty and brittle in her old age, a former boyfriend who instead of became self-centered and inward and I notice myself that if I’m not careful I wake up in the mornings like a grumpy old lady.
EEEK AGAIN!
We must run away from these traits and constantly keep that negative image of our 80 year-old selves right in front of us. Is this negative conditioning? Yes it is. But in this case, if we don’t keep an image of what we don’t want right in front of us, we will slide downhill right towards it.
I’m not sure why but it seems a fact of human destiny, that if we don’t change on purpose, we tend to deteriorate in body, mind and spirit as we age. We’re not just getting older, we’re getting more crochety! But we don’t have to.
The negative image in this case is really a positive way of heading towards what we really want. Because the cool thing is that when work against our default nature, we actually reveal our real and beautiful selves.
The diamond is right underneath the crud. So get digging.
Don’t be afraid to dig out your absolute worst traits and keep them in mind everyday as you go about your life. With each nasty part of yourself that you undo, you shed just a little more light on the world.
Mine for today was to wake up out of grumpy and into gratitude. Ah, what a beautiful day and how blessed my life is. How about you?
BP or Not BP?
July 1, 2010
New Zealand farm
This is a wonderful, well-written blog post by my business collaborator Ian Waddelow. Ian is a European consultant who works with successful businesses around the world. He is a white knight crusading for a better world.
There are four types of people in the world:
Landowners: who control the world’s assets
Farmers: who are appointed by landowners to tend and maximize their assets
Sheepdogs: the trusted and loyal adjutant of farmers that tear around with tireless energy snapping at the sheep, keeping them under control and bending them to the will of the farmer.
Sheep: who bleat a lot but usually end up following the crowd and doing as they are told.
You can see this play out perfectly in the recent BP oil spill off the coast of America.
The Landowners – for BP: the shareholders -
for USA Inc: voters who own assets affected by spill -
for GB PLC: the voters with assets tied to BP (pension funds etc.)
According to Christopher Helman, a Houston-based editor with Forbes, the Gulf Oil Spill will cost BP more than $60 billion: $20 billion into the BP Trust Fund (recently set up after a lot of arm twisting from the Obama administration) $22bn in clean-up costs (two years at $30.6 million a day) and $20bn in penalties (and lawsuits)
It is clear to any financial analyst that such numbers seriously call into question BP’s ability to remain solvent. Were the company to liquidate, the shareholder – our landowners – would stand to lose $236bn in assets.
Naturally, they will fight to stop this from happening. US asset owners don’t want this to happen either unless it gives them the best chance of the biggest payout in restitution. GB PLC cannot afford for this revenue stream to disappear as it receive $5.6bn a year from BP in income tax, national insurance contributions, fuel duty and VAT.
To see BP go under has long-term far reaching consequences for all the landowners.
The Farmers – for BP: Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg and CEO, Tony Hayward
for USA Inc: President Barak Obama
for GB PLC: Prime Minister David Cameron
Whenever there is trouble on the farm, the farmer has to take the flak and all four are under immense pressure from their lords and masters it makes sense to come up with a deal between them.
The additional problem for Obama and Cameron is they are the appointed farmer for many landowners, some with conflicting requirements. Both heads of state are starting to realize they cannot please all their masters all the time. For Obama, he has the local population hit by the disaster desperate for restitution and punishment.
They want to see the company brought to its knees and yet 40% of BP shareholders are members of USA Inc. Pensions, investment funds, and personal savings would all be dramatically hit. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil would love to get their hands on those $236bn in BP assets for a knockdown price.
Cameron, meanwhile, was on the campaign trail when the disaster struck and has to get up to speed quickly and defend his revenue stream and one of the few remaining UK global corporations.
The Sheepdogs – The PR men
This is trial by media and so any good farmer will have some loyal and efficient sheepdogs rounding up the press and controlling public opinion. Obama’s team were the first to coral them, demanding summits and capturing the green moral high ground.
They positioned BP as ‘the evil baddy’ in the story, negligent and uncaring and put a white Stetson firmly onto Obama’s head.
Cameron was yet to walk through the door of Number 10 so could do little without a clear mandate to act.
Unfortunately, Tony Hayward’s sheepdogs watched the sheep wander all over the place and in irritation started snapping at the heels of the flock leaders. Despite spending $50m on PR, his team made a series of gaffes, including:
- initially saying the impact would be ‘very modest’(enraging Gulf coast landowners and US politicians).
- going sailing while the disaster was at its height
- pledging on a nationally broadcast TV advertisement that “We will make this right.”
- posting a public apology for the oil spill on the BP website and promising to clean up every drop of oil and “restore the shoreline to its original state”.
- telling the people in Louisiana, where oil had begun to reach parts of the state’s south-eastern marshes,. “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.” The statement was particularly criticized given that eleven people died in the drilling platform explosion that caused the spill.
- stating in an interview with Sky News that he was not overly concerned by the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest.”
- insisting to a Guardian reporter that the leaked oil and the dispersant being released into the sea should be put in context: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
- telling NBC that BP was not at fault for the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon or the subsequent oil spill. “The drilling rig was a Transocean drilling rig. It was their rig and their equipment that failed, run by their people and their processes
- advertising on the web for any ideas on how to stop the oil leak
- spending the $50m on these statements – allowing Obama to cry “What I don’t wanna hear is when they’re spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising that they’re nickel and diming fishermen.” It also allowed Obama’s chief of White House staff and loyal right-hand sheep dog to chime in and say Mr. Hayward “wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements”.
A sheepdog that doesn’t round up sheep is not a sheepdog.
The Sheep – all the stakeholders living on the farm
Life as a sheep is ultimately one of powerless frustration. Their world is filled with death, suffering and devastation but what to do? The sheep have every right to be incredulous. They are suffering but they are also just playing the game.
The solution is also not simple. You try just tightening a nut with a robot, with no purchase, 1,500 metres below the surface of the ocean. While the sheep make suggestions to stop the leak (ranging from ice plugs to nuclear weapons) they are powerless to act.
The sad thing in all of this is that had BP cut the riser during the first week and installed a second blowout preventer, a massively heavy stack the size of a five story building, then we may have been applauding Hayward for averting an horrific natural disaster.
What pains the sheep the most is it is their lives that are ruined and can do little to avert the problem. Big problems are generated by big entities and in many cases these corporate entities are bigger and more powerful than governments.
They, therefore, are the only ones capable of solving the problems that they make.
The suspicion is that the BP landowners and farmers are in a collusion of greed. They ignored the signs that their golden goose was sick and, instead of paying for a vet, decided to simply shoved their arm inside the bird to pull out whatever gold they could lay their hands on.
Modern day landowners are short term. They want their jam and bread today. They are not interested in handing over the assets to future generations but surely global companies are one day going to realize – no globe, no company.
It is time for shareholders to think bigger and longer and appoint farmers who think the same rather than maximizing their exit after three years of starving the golden goose.
So if you are a landowner or farmer, be wary for being too judgmental of Mr. Hayward. Everyone from railway companies to airlines, from pharmaceutical companies to utilities are cutting corners and the farmers that are appointed are the ones who turn a blind eye.
If you are a head of state like GB Inc you will see that selling off all your land leaves you at their beck and call. You will never be more than their hired hand.
As for the rest of us, the sheep, what to do? We appoint farmers who have sold all our assets to wealthy corporate landowners and plunged us deep into debt. Shall we just bleat?.
Are we just going meekly like lambs to the slaughter or is it time to ensure that the meek truly inherit the earth and build some new assets for us all?
Life is a Dangerous Adventure
June 29, 2010
courage
Life is a dangerous adventure and we should live it with gusto. But too often we live as if life was meant to make us comfortable or to give us everything we need. Then we act shocked and outraged when ‘things go wrong.’
Things aren’t going wrong. It’s just life.
When life is a dangerous adventure then you actively seek out the un-comfort-able zone. You put yourself on the edge of your awareness, always eager for growth, change and the next step into the impossible.
In the comfort zone you basically stay in the sleep zone of life and while you feel good on one level, you terrible on another because some part of you knows deep down that you were meant for more.
Does life as a dangerous adventure mean that you need to become like Evil Knievel and jump over cars? No. That is called daring and is good for those high wire folks, but it is not what I’m talking about.
Unlike heroic acts of courage in exceptional circumstances, it’s about developing the inner courage that enables us to lead authentic and fulfilling lives on a day-to-day basis. This is the courage to embrace the unknown in spite of our fears.
I’m talking about embracing life. Seeing it as it really is rather than the way we’ve been conditioned to believe it is. This would include:
- not being shocked when things don’t go your way
- seeking out the things that are good for your growth but make you uncomfortable
- helping others to do the same
- enjoying it all!
Ah that’s life in the no-comfort zone – risky, juicy and full of….welll life!
As Osho says, “Whenever we are faced with uncertainty and change in our lives, it is actually a cause for celebration. Instead of trying to hang on to the familiar and the known, we can learn to enjoy these situations as opportunities for adventure and for deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.”
Don’t call it uncertainty, call it wonder
Don’t call it insecurity, call it freedom
When we feel more insecurity and more danger the only way to respond to it is with awareness. There are only two possibilities, either you close your eyes and become like an ostrich or you wake up to the life that is waiting all around you.
Life is not a mechanical process. Life is a mystery. Nobody knows what is going to happen in the next moment. If everything is known then we are just robots sleepwalking through life.
So if you’re looking for your next dangerous adventures, don’t just make it a bungy-jumping trip to Cancun, make it your whole life.
Viva la vida peligrosa!
I’d enjoy hearing from you and if you’d like to listen to my Radio Show on the same topic, I’ll have lots of fun stories and tips for you there too!
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